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On the roads

He urged fellow councillors to get out and start talking to residents, borough and parish councillors in their wards to find innovative ways to use the cash.

Cllr Kemp added: “It’s engaging with the local community that matters. Council members should be talking to residents. At the end of the day we are there to represent residents. That’s got to be our key priority.”

He said council leader David Hodge had decided to split his pot of money between the four parish councils in his Tandridge district of Warlingham to match-fund projects.

The member’s money comes from 1% of the council tax for Surrey. This is on top of the extra £5 million granted for highways repairs announced last month.

Surrey's Highways in Numbers

In Surrey there are 3,000 miles of roads, 1,800 bridges and structures and 3,262 miles of footway.

In 2017, £96 million was spent on maintaining and improving the highways network with half going on routine maintenance (filling potholes, cutting grass, gritting) and the remainder on carriageway resurfacing, flood prevention and major works such as Runnymede Roundabout.

It would cost nearly £450 million to get all the roads to an ‘as new’ condition

Surrey receives £25 million per year from the Department for Transport

Local organisations can fund a grit bin for £947 which covers installation, repair, maintenance, insurance, administration and one fill a year, for four years.

Teams at Surrey Highways have been kept busy over the past few weeks with extra man power deployed by contractors Kier to check and fix potholes reported to the teams.

This winter caused the worst damage in Surrey since 2013 and 25 gangs of three people are working on the roads across the county instead of the usual 8-12 crews.

Cllr Kemp said this was not costing any extra money as it was covered in the £160 million four-year contract the council has with Kier.

There were 8,377 potholes reported in March this year – more than double the amount of 3,851 recorded in March last year.

February’s figures rose from 3,516 last year to 6,524 this year.

Cllr Colin Kemp, Surrey County Council Cabinet Member for Highways (Image: TMS)

Cllr Kemp said around 12-15 repairs are being carried out a day. Work includes patching a pothole or up to half a mile of road.

Concerns have been raised about the fact the crews are carrying out temporary repairs in some places, meaning they have to return to fix the road at a later date.

Clr Kemp said this was to manage the amount of reports coming in which then prioritises the work with P1 being an emergency call out.

He said the temporary repairs allow the crews to cover more ground and assured they would return at a future date to complete the repair.

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In an email sent out to members on Friday (April 13) , he said: “This does not cost the county any more money, this is an operation decision which allows the risk to be managed and enables Kier to meet the response criteria.”

He also addressed complaints that not all defects at the same location were being fixed, saying crews were only being told to deal with the potholes or problems reported so they could fit more into their day.

The highways teams reported in 2016 it had nearly £3 million backlog of repairs to catch up on and cabinet improved an extension to the Kier contract to last until 2021.

According to 2016 cabinet papers, members decided to extend the contract rather than re-tender due to the high demand on the sector because of major works such as HS2 and Crossrail putting prices up.